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BUFFALO, N.Y. -- A $500 scholarship was awarded to each member
of the winning team in the University at Buffalo School of
Management's third annual Steven C. Verney MBA Case
Competition.

The winners were Alex Banfia of Niagara Falls, Canada;
Christopher Bodkin of Amherst; David Gordon of Amherst; Alina Cofas
of Bucharest, Romania; and Samantha Roth of Amherst.

All first-year MBAs at UB took part in the competition, which
required them to read and analyze a Harvard business case and write
a report recommending solutions for the company in the study.

The top four teams then presented their findings to a panel of
judges in the event's final round on March 27 in the Jacobs
Executive Development Center, 672 Delaware Ave., Buffalo.

The competition was created exclusively for first-year MBA
students in the UB School of Management through a donation from
Steven C. Verney, a vice president of Allstate Insurance Company in
Chicago, who received his bachelor's degree in 1980 and his MBA in
1981 from UB.

Members of the second-place team each received $250
scholarships.

The judges for the final round of the competition were Arjang A.
Assad, dean of the School of Management; John Dunbar, MBA '81,
principal of Strategic Investments & Holdings in Buffalo;
Kenneth Fick '98, director of forensic and litigation consulting at
FTI Consulting in Washington, D.C.; and Stephen Kneeland, retired
vice president for service marketing at Xerox Corporation in
Rochester.

The Wall Street Journal has ranked the UB School of
Management No. 9 in the nation among schools with strong regional
recruiting bases. In addition, BusinessWeek has ranked the
school as one of the country's top 5 business schools for the
fastest return on MBA investment, and Forbes has cited it as
one of the best business schools in the U.S. for the return on
investment it provides MBA graduates. For more information about
the UB School of Management, visit mgt.buffalo.edu.

The University at Buffalo is a premier research-intensive public
university, a flagship institution in the State University of New
York system and its largest and most comprehensive campus. UB's
more than 28,000 students pursue their academic interests through
more than 300 undergraduate, graduate and professional degree
programs. Founded in 1846, the University at Buffalo is a member of
the Association of American Universities.